De-sludging my system

[NBee]

Hi all. When we put our rads on for the first time a few weeks ago, we found that most of them were cold in the middle. They were fine at the end of last winter, so not sure why they're like that now. Anyway, I've put in a whole container of the desludging stuff (not firnox, the other one - sentinol?).

I drained the system a little, so that the header tank emptied, and poured the fluid down the supply pipe, ensuring it got into the system. I then sealed the system up, and have been running the rads for a few days. They seem a little better, but are still cold in the middle.

What should I do next? Should a do a complete system drain? Should I drain the system while it's running so that new water replaces the old?

Thanks for any advice.

 

[supermario]

did you try reading the instructions?? To get the best result you should have drained down first then refilled plus sludge remover but as you didnt-run it for up to a week ,drain back down refill plus inhibitor and if your lucky some/most/all (delete as you will) of the sludge will be removed

 

[supermario]

did you try reading the instructions?? To get the best result you should have drained down first then refilled plus sludge remover but as you didnt-run it for up to a week ,drain back down refill plus inhibitor and if your lucky some/most/all (delete as you will) of the sludge will be removed

 

[ChrisR]

I'd say you'd be very likely to be in seriously in trouble if you drained a sludgy system - no rads working downstairs afterwards at all. Sentinel X400 takes weeks to do very much, and won't touch serious or hardened sludge.

Unless you use aggressive acidic chemicals you'll probably remove very little sludge by simply draining. They need neutralising, and you'll not drain it all out easily...
This is powerflushing territory, though you can do some shifting with the mains, even without strong chems.

 

[NBee]

Thanks for the responses. I DID read the instruction, but to be honest they are not very detailed. And I have little experience, so there's always a certain amount of guesswork involved.

I'll drain it completely on saturday, and maybe stick another bottle of the stuff in, and see how that goes.

BTW - it's a maisonette, so there's only 4 rads on 1 level to worry about. And like I say, they were fine last winter, so it shouldn't be that hard to shift I wouldn't have thought.